


Summerlong

by bedlamsbard



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/324006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedlamsbard/pseuds/bedlamsbard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If it was ever this hot on Tatooine, everyone would panic. They'd think the world was ending.</i> Anakin/Padme, between AotC and RotS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summerlong

The heat is thick and languid and Anakin strips down to his lightest pair of trousers and an undershirt, lying on his stomach beneath the weeping trees along the river. He can hear the waterfalls in the distance; a fine mist drifts back along the shore to cool his overheated skin, already slick with sweat from the humidity.

He keeps his lightsaber and his comm on him, but his main occupations is one of the books from the Naberrie family library. It’s a real book, printed on paper and bound in thin cardstock, and there’s something fascinating about its simplicity. It’s written in the old Noobian tongue, of course, and so Anakin has to translate while he reads. Aside from various technical manuals and the HoloNet gossip pages, it’s the first thing he’s ever read for pleasure and certainly the first fiction. The Jedi don’t believe in stories that don’t teach anything; this features an unlikely romance between the Princess of Theed and a reckless Corellian pirate. Anakin rather likes it.

He feels Padmé in the Force before he sees her. She comes over and sits down next to him, tucking her legs up under the fall of her skirt, and says, “What are you doing?”

Anakin shows her the book, rolling over onto his side so he can look at her without straining his neck.

Padmé looks at it and laughs, the expression lightening the faintly frantic lines of her face. “My sister used to read those to me when I was a girl. How far into it are you?”

“Princess Niobara – that’s the heroine – has just been ransomed by her family,” Anakin tells her, wide-eyed with faux-innocence. “Captain Streide’s returning her to Naboo, but neither of them know that Niobara’s handmaiden Tria has been pretending to be her and is about to ascend the throne and become Queen.”

“I remember that one,” Padmé says. “There are three of them.”

Anakin grins at her. “Do you remember what happens?”

“Well, she’s pregnant, you see,” Padmé says solemnly. “That’s where the first book ends. In the next book she gives birth to twins in secret, so she can – do you want me to tell you this?”

Anakin is aware that he has a slightly goofy grin on his face, but all he says is, “Yes.” He really is interested.

Padmé smiles and continues, “Well, in the first book she and Streide topple Tria, but Niobara doesn’t have the heart to kill her, so she’s exiled instead. Streide leaves and Niobara becomes Queen, which is when she finds out she’s pregnant.”

“And?” Anakin prods when she stops.

Padmé takes the book out of his hands and places it carefully aside. “And the Jedi take away her son when he’s born and I don’t remember the rest. It _was_ a long time ago. You’ll have to read them to me.” She stretches out her legs and lies down next to Anakin. “Is it too hot for you?”

He shrugs for her. “The heat’s fine. The humidity –”

“Naboo hasn’t had a summer like this for twenty years,” Padmé says. “I barely remember the last one – I was just a girl then. Sola and I practically lived in the lake.”

Anakin reaches out to touch her – the curve of her shoulder, the dark curl that’s fallen free of its bindings, the smooth line of her breastbone. “If it was ever this humid on Tatooine, everyone would panic,” he offers, because it’s expected. The thought hurts like sand in a raw wound. “They’d think the world was ending.”

“Do you think the world is ending?”

He has to stop to think about that. “Only when I look at you,” he says finally. “You’re so beautiful.”

She looks a little uncertain about that, but smiles anyway. “It’s nice to be here,” she says. “With you. It feels safe.”

“Are you afraid?” Anakin asks.

For a long moment Padmé just looks at him, then she reaches down and draws the hem of her skirt up to her hip. She has a slim, streamlined blaster strapped to her thigh. “I’m cautious,” she says. “Even here. I have to be.”

“I’ll protect you,” Anakin protests, slightly hurt.

“You’re only one man,” Padmé points out gently. “Even you can’t be everywhere at once. Please, Ani, let’s not talk about this. I just spent three hours in a holoconference with the Planetary Defense Committee and that’s enough for one day.”

Anakin frowns. “I thought the Senate wasn’t in session.”

Padmé gives him a faintly exasperated look. “That doesn’t mean the affairs of the Republic just stop,” she chides. “Especially not during a war.”

He looks down. Obi-Wan is still on Coruscant, pouring over Archive records while waiting for his broken arm to heal; Anakin wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the combination of Obi-Wan’s injury and Padmé’s latest assassination attempt. He feels – odd about being here while knowing Obi-Wan is hurt, but right now Padmé needs him more than Obi-Wan does.

Padmé must see the distress on his face, because she reaches over and twines her fingers with his. “I’m here now,” she says. “It’s just us.”

Anakin smiles slowly. “You’re right,” he says, “Right now we’re the only ones that matter,” and leans over to kiss her troubles away until all that remains are breathy sighs and the whisper of water in the distance.


End file.
